Why people are calling on California to secede from U.S.

People marched on the state Capitol Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, urging Californians to secede from the U.S.

SOURCE: KCRA

Why people are calling on California to secede from U.S.

'Yes California' wants state to become sovereign nation

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Updated: 12:12 PM EST Jan 4, 2017

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —

"Yes to Independence for California" is a movement that began gaining traction after the presidential election of Donald Trump. It aims to turn California into a sovereign nation, with its own president, military and eventually currency.

Leaders of the movement plan to create a referendum for Spring 2019, similar to the one that resulted in Brexit when the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. This is being call "Calexit."

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Protesters marched to the state Capitol Wednesday evening to support the movement, which has gathered more than 18,000 likes on Facebook.

KCRA’s Natalie Brunell talked to one of the leaders, Marcus Ruiz Evans, about what’s behind the campaign, which started long before this contentious race for the White House:

Q: What is the "Yes for Independence for California" movement?

Evans: We’ve been at this about two-and-a-half years. Obviously, we had a major shot in the arm with Donald Trump being elected. But two-and-a-half years ago, we were saying that, "America is failing, it’s not working. Why don’t we save ourselves instead of go down with the ship."

Q: Do you really think you can make California an independent nation?

Evans: Ya, I know we get that question a lot. So it starts like this: No one said I’d ever publish a book, no one said we’d get in the news -- and we got in the LA Times twice -- no one said anyone would join -- we’re up to 15,000 supporters. Reporters are here. Trump got elected. We have a book out. The fact is every month we grow. If we can pull that off, why is it unreasonable there’s anything we can’t do?

Q: What was the inspiration behind the movement starting in 2014?

Evans: We’ve based ourselves off the Scottish Independence model, in fact the YES logo, and the book you have, is based off the Scottish movement. We very much copied their model. They’re the sort of marquee movement of independence around the world, and the first thing you have to have is a vote. That’s why we have to have that referendum in 2018 or 2019.

Q: How do you think you can make this happen?

Evans: Texas v. White was the only Supreme Court decision to deal with secession. Now, we abhor the Civil War. They were for not diversity and using weapons. We’re for diversity and international trade and being the most diverse place in the world. But, the U.S. Supreme Court decision said there were two ways to do this: one is a violent revolution, we’re not endorsing that -- Californians are hippies. The other is consent of the states.

Q: So would you need a passport to go to Nevada or Arizona?

Evans: Yes, but I’d like to point out that we have border walls and gates of entry and the infrastructure to have gates is already there. We already have the infrastructure in place to be a nation.

Q: What is one of the arguments for leaving the U.S.?

Evans: For the last three decades, California pays more into the federal system than it ever gets. It pays about $1, it gets 75 cents back. Twenty-five to 35 states, according to the IRS, get more than a dollar. So, you pay federal income taxes, you get a fraction back, (and) 25 to 35 states are subsidized by you. And at that same time schools, dams, airports, highways, levies have all gone horribly wrong.

We don’t think it’s a coincidence that when California became a donor state and the infrastructure started failing is the same time period and it’s unrelated. That’s the world’s largest coincidence.

Q: Who would be the President of California?

Evans: So this is the great thing, a lot of things don’t have to change. Gov. (Arnold) Schwarzenegger went to Asia to sign trade deals. He was criticized because only presidents could do that but he did that.

Gov. Jerry Brown traveled to China and signed a climate deal. You can’t do that. They call it a memorandum of understanding, but if you look at the legal framework, it’s a treaty. He went to Mexico and signed a trade deal.

So, we already have governors that act like presidents and when you add the fact that we, California alone, got the world moving on climate change -- that’s sort of a presidential, federal, international level thing to do.

We think a simple name change will get us 90 percent of the way there.